APES Florida Trip 2023 🌴

 By: Maddie Watts Today we had started our day with breakfast at Hampton Inn in Miami. The hotel was brand new and super nice! Then we started making our two and a half hour drive down to Summerland Key. On our way down we stopped at The Shell Factory on Key Largo, where we could buy shells or souvenirs. Once we left there, we stopped at Robbie’s to feed the tarpon and the pelicans. Once we fed them we got shaved ice as a before-lunch dessert (we are on vacation after all.) And then our leisurely two and a half hour drive was interrupted when a charter bus caught fire; luckily no one was injured. Since there’s only one road in and one road out, our drive to the keys turned into four hours. Plan A for today was to go kayaking with Mote Marine at 2 PM. Unfortunately we didn’t get out of the traffic jam until 1:30 and we still hadn’t eaten lunch yet. Thankfully in the Keys plan B consists of extra beach time. While we were at the beach we were basically on our own ecotour because we f...

By Karyna Haskett ☀️ In the morning we embarked on a long drive from Tampa to Miami. I loved observing the beautiful condos and palm trees we passed. We stopped at a WaWa to get some things we needed, and later we stopped at a Love's to grab lunch. (Just as we were starting to leave there was an announcement calling for whoever was parked in front of Pump 14 to move, because there was a line behind them. It was us! Whoops!) 🌴 Hours later we finally were passing the watery ditches with large birds perching on trees. We were nearing the Everglades! Mr. Park and Maddie saw some alligator's heads swimming by.... 🐢 We arrived at Coopertown and got out of the car to stretch and layer on sunscreen. A tour guide got our picture in front of a green backdrop, where we pretended we were backing away in fear from an alligator! We sat down for a short presentation where a guide showed us a baby alligator. We got to feel the baby's hard, textured back. He then showed us a 13-foot albin...

Sunset Kayaking Tour! By:Hanna Surfus This incredible evening started at Get up and Go Kayaking in Tampa Bay. These kayaks were no ordinary kayaks... they were glass bottom kayaks! Once we loaded onto the kayaks we soon realized that we should have wore different clothes because we indeed did not leave this adventure dry. As we started off we learned many things from our amazing tour guide Jada. She told many different interesting facts about different types of birds we spotted, mangroves, fish, sea grass, and shells. About a half an hour in we arrived at a beach. This beach was part of Shell Key Preserve. You can only get to Shell Key by a kayak or boat. One thing that was very fun about this island was that since it isn't a public beach, it is amazing for shell hunting! As everyone walked down the Gulf Side of the beach I had a different plan in mind. I walked the opposite direction until I reached zero visible footprints from other tourist. As I made my way back into the trees a...

​Sunday, February 26 Day Two Today we all woke up bright and early and ate breakfast at the Holiday Inn in Crystal River. We arrived at Fun2Dive at 7:00 am for our manatee tour. When we arrived to Fun2Dive the employees were incredibly kind and full of knowledge. There were not any manatees for about 10ish minutes. But that all changed rapidly. Four noses breached the water. We were all ecstatic at the sight. At this location we anchored the boat and hopped into the bay. For a moment we just searched the water for the manatees. But then, out of no where, we were surrounded by manatees! The manatees were incredibly comfortable with us. They would bring there faces directly in front of ours and brush against us. We spent a couple of hours enjoying this once in a lifetime opportunity.

​Our first day in Florida was a success! We had a wonderful flight from Indianapolis to Tampa, and then enjoyed lunch at Chick-fil-A. We were all able to register for TSA pre check, which made a much easier experience of getting through the airport without stress.  Three members of our group had never flown before, but it was a great first-time experience for them, as our flight went smoothly. We arrived in Tampa around 11:30, so we were able to get a great start on our day from there! Then, we traveled north to Honeymoon Island for a beach day! We were able to appreciate the 86 degree weather, cool off by swimming in the ocean, and scavenge for interesting shells along the shoreline. We found many of those, as well as sand dollars and coral! After leaving the beach, we drove to Crystal River and checked in to our hotel before going out to dinner at Peck’s Old Port Cove. There, we ate lots of seafood.  It is safe to say that this was the perfect start to our field trip, and we...